Friday, February 25, 2011

Ok, ok, so this is the post where I am supposed to admit that after last posts surprising finds that I've reconsidered and I now have a great and deep understanding and love of polka music. Eh, not gonna happen. In fact I would rather gargle glass, vote for Sarah Palin for President and let Mike Vick walk my dog before listening to one more day of it. maybe it's the constant upbeat accordian/tuba riffs or the fact that polka existed waaay before the concept intellectual property was invented so instead od each artist having thier own songs they all basicaly played varioations on the same song..over and over and over again. The lack of variety was maddening. Maybe it was a logistical error on my part when I chose it for this project. Polka is marching music and dancing music...listening to it alone may have done it an injustice. The fact that most of it had no lyrics and the few that did were in a variety of germanic and slavic languages didn't help. Of course a few did have yodeling and those I dug.
So, in the future will I listen to polka? Probably not but if I have a chance to see a polka band or go to a dance I'll think about giving it a shot at viewing it in it's proper element.

Next up
The pimp with the heart of gold
The bone daddy
The shizznizzle
And quite possibly the man who stole the sheeshka
SNOOP DOGG!!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

So here I am, suffering through CD after CD of random polka madness trying desperately to find anything I could connect with, anything familiar..anything!!

And to prove that there is indeed a God in the heavens and she has a wicked sense of humor I finally ran across a song I recognized.

A song that I always avoid at all costs.

A song that has made me cringe since I was a child.

A song I react so strongly too that I will actively avoid anyone who claims to like it because based on that alone they can't possibly be trusted.

Many of you feel the same way as I do and I asked that you gird your loins and be brave for the next few minutes..this part will be over soon and I promise that before this post is done I will infect you with another song that will blot this one out of your mind..

So, yes...the song...I never knew it was a polka...I should have.

What song do I refer to?

The.

Chicken.

Dance.

Chilling!!

It figures that when I finally find a polka I recognize it triggers my gag reflex !!

Still, it must have been a karmic right of passage because after I found it the flood gates opened and I started to recognize alot. It turns out that because most polka songs aren't very original there is a common pool that most artists pull from and thus alot end up in the public domain and over the years have served as back drops in Looney Toons, The Three Stooges and even more!!

The next big revelation knocked me off my feet. I had no idea that I was going to find a polka song that I liked and have known since I was 16 years old but also one that that has been an icon of not one but two major motion pictures, one of which won an academy award, This song is so entrenched in the popular culture I bet everybody reading this knows it well.

I, of course, refer to the "Colonel Bogey March"!

What are you looking at me like that for?

Of course you know it!!

Yes, you do!!

Not only do you know it but in then less then 30 seconds you're going to be humming, singing and whistling along to it.

Don't believe me?

By all means ...take a peek

Ahahahahaha!!! Suckers!!

That song is gonna be stuck in your head ALL NIGHT!!!!

Not only did The Breakfast Club secretly bring polka to a whole generation but it also paid tribute to another film in the most hilarious and subtle in-joke I've seen in Hollywood.

You see, before "The Breakfast Club" The Colonel Bogey March was highlighted in a film called "Bridge Over the River Kwai". Wherein Obi Wan Kenobi, long before he became a Jedi, was the leader of a group of POW's captured by the Japanese during WWII and forced to work at hard labour. The captured soldiers used to whistle the march each time they were gathered as a show of defiance to their captors and to prove that their spirit wasn't broken. Kinda funny John Hughes had his kids use the march the same way and never told anyone..when I finally realized the parallel it made me laugh!!

And it would have been impossible with out polka!!!

Geez, after that little nugget could it get any better?

You know it!

For those of you who don't know, I'm a diehard Greenbay Packers fan and after they won the super bowl I was so psyched I decided I wanted an "NFL Champion" T-shirt. I ran to Google and searched for Greenbay Packers not even realizing that I had already had the word polka in my search box from when I was doing research earlier.

The sky opened up and I was blessed with a great gift!!!!

Ahahahahaha!!!

Packers Polka!!!!!

Maybe there's something to this Polka stuff after all!!!!

I'll have to give it another chance...but I gotta go grab my cheesehead now!!!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

So if Kurt Cobain is the sullen stoner on our imaginary musical play ground then Polka is the chubby, manicly cheerful Austrian exchange student who smiles constantly and nods emphatically at everything you see even though he doesn't understand a word of English. He is a joyful, bursting Agustus Gloop if you will who wants nothing more then to get our feet tapping to the accordion rift and the uplifting ompapah of the tuba!!!
Polka is considered the worlds happiest music and after last month's rousing success I should be excited...but some how I get the sinking suspicion that I'm gonna end up feeling like I've been locked in Disney World over night after realizing I just ate the brown acid.
I've listened a few days so far and it's just so far from what I consider music that I'm having a hard time connecting with it. However, all that aside, we have a deal and I won't renege....February will be all Polka, all the time even if I end up jacked up on Thorazine and banging my head against the wall in a rhythmic and cheerful manner! My hope is that after a week of going through my hundred or so songs I have I'll find some favorites and start to form a connection.....if not it's gonna be a looooooooooooong month!!!